All foreshores are again turning on great fishing lately with whiting really making a strong show in all areas.

Grunters can be a welcome by-catch when chasing whiting and will no doubt test your angling skills on light gear, as many of our customers have recently discovered.

Crabs are active at present, with blue swimmers and mud crabs feeding a lot of happy locals. Remember to keep pots out of high traffic areas.

Prawns are active in all our estuaries, which not only offers great tucker but also draws lots of attention from many fish species also looking for a feed.

Mangrove jack, queenfish, and trevally are still our main sportfish in creeks and rivers at present, with some cracking specimens being caught from Cabbage Tree Creek, Pine River, and Pumicestone Passage.

Maria Lures have released some new colours recently with many ideally suited to the above mentioned species.

Overall our estuaries are in good condition and producing well, so check size and bag limits as you enjoy our fantastic coastline.

All our local dams fished very well through January, and with hot conditions to continue into February things are looking good, particularly in North Pine and Kurwongbah.

Both these local dams have given great results lately with bass and saratoga being the main targets for most catch and release anglers.

Goldens are showing up in patches this summer with most catches coming from worm or shrimp baits in North Pine, with the odd fish taking small artificials. Jackal TN 70S are the pick lure for shore-based anglers, as good cast distance can be achieved.

Below our two local dams, things are steady but not producing as well as past seasons. This is probably due to the lack of rain in previous weeks. For the fly fisher, early morning and late arvo sessions are still the go with Woolley Buggers in darker tones achieving good results.

Snakes have been very active lately, so watch where you put your feet over the coming weeks.

The Southern Bay islands have been producing a mixed bag of fish from bream, cod, sweetlip, snapper and morwong using pilchards, squid and mullet fillets. The most productive times are still early morning before the boat traffic builds or fish into the evening.

School and spottie mackerel have been caught in good numbers around most of the bay beacons. Try a lightly weighted pilchard in a berley trail, and it sometimes pays to fish a live or dead bait on the bottom with a heavy line for a large cod, kingfish or even cobia.

There’s been a couple of large king threadfin salmon caught off the Woody Point Jetty recently, as well as a strange and unusual fish called a tripletail. Tripletail are a rare catch and with their body shape and fin structure they are an absolute treat to fight as they pull lots of line and even jump.

We have been witnessing one of the best offshore trolling season in years with reports of marlin, wahoo, and mahi mahi around in great numbers, as well as the odd yellowfin tuna thrown in to the mix.

The Trench, Hutchison Shoals, east of Flinders Reef, all the way to the South Passage Bar, have been fishing very well. The waters around Shag Rock have been doing exceptionally well for the wahoo and marlin. A lot of the guys we’ve spoken to at the shop seem to have had the most success on pink/white and purple/black skirted lures. Vary your trolling speed between 6-9 knots and remember, if things aren’t working, mix it up a bit. Try changing lure size and or colour, trolling speed etc. Trolling live and dead baits, live baiting bait schools have all been working well.

There’s plenty on offer for those chasing a feed of reef fish; Smiths Rock, Brennan and Roberts shoal are worth a bottom bash with plastics or bait. Some decent snapper and spangled emperor have also been reported along with some yellowtail king turning a few reels.

If conditions allow, green jobfish can be caught at Smiths with berley and unweighted bait.